The Lumiere Brothers

One hundred and fifteen years ago Auguste and Louis Lumiere invented cinematography—moving pictures or video, as we know it today. On March 19, 1895, Auguste and Louis recorded workers leaving their factory in Lyon, France. The film was 17 meters long and was hand cranked through a projector to produce the world’s first “video.” It lasted approximately 50 seconds.

George Eastman refined and popularized video technique. Eastman Kodak developed the Kodak Brownie movie camera, a wind up camera that could be held in your hand. The Kodak Brownie movie camera sold for just $45 and instantly made home movies the rage of the 1950’s.

Today we take video for granted. We can go to YouTube to watch educational videos on how to grow heirloom tomatoes or how to fillet a Northern Pike to remove the Y-bones. Digital technology, the speed of our computers, and the ability of our networks to handle the bandwidth, have made video a ubiquitous part of our culture.

Bethel’s redesigned website will offer the ability to include rich streaming video features on our pages. Behind the point and click mechanics of the website, there will be new video-on-demand capabilities provided by a streaming media server.

The server will store the video content and stream it directly to you as you interact with the Bethel site. The streaming server will also make live video available over the web. Get ready to watch live broadcasts of WBCS-TV news on a web browser near you.

Streaming servers alone cannot produce compelling video. I am sure I could ask my friend G. W. Carlson to sit in front of a camera and drone on about the factors leading up to the Bolshevik Revolution, but that can hardly be categorized as compelling video (my apologies to G.W.). Video content used on Bethel’s redesigned web site will need to accomplish the goals of attracting new students and communicating Bethel’s values clearly to a generation that is inundated with video content. As compelling video content becomes available, Bethel’s redesigned website will be ready to handle it.

Thanks Auguste and Louis. We celebrate your creativity and your invention. We have come a long way in 115 years.